International

Telegram appeals $14,000 fine for refusing to cooperate with FSB

15:20, Thursday, 26 October, 2017

Telegram Messenger LLP has appealed a ruling of the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow fining the company 800,000 rubles (nearly $14,000) for refusing to provide the Federal Security Service (FSB) with information on message decoding concerning several users, lawyer Pavel Chikov wrote on his Telegram account on Thursday. According to one of Telegram’s arguments listed by Chikov, the court did not check if the company even has the data, which is of interest to FSB. He notes that the information in question is not replicated on the company’s servers and that messenger had no technical means to abide by the ruling. On October 16, the court found Telegram guilty of failure to store and (or) furnish information on users and their messages to law enforcement agencies. On Wednesday, Chikov stated that prominent Russian journalists Oleg Kashin and Alexander Plyushchev would file lawsuits against FSB over the request to obtain information on Telegram messages decoding. In June, head of the communications watchdog Roskomnadzor Alexander Zharov requested the Telegram management to comply with the Russian legislation or face blocking of the messenger. Telegram founder Pavel Durov has agreed to register the service in Russia. However, he refused to abide by “laws incompatible with Telegram privacy policy,” Durov wrote on his VKontakte (VK) page in late June.